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Modeling aircraft of
the Vietnam War

FSPDF036
 VIETNAM SPECIAL

Build a beautiful
TWO-SEAT “HUN”
Modeling an F-100F from the war in Southeast Asia
By Pat Hawkey

O ne of the first jets in the Vietnam War was the North

American F-100 Super Sabre. It arrived at Don Muong
airport in Bangkok, Thailand in 1961, already a proven veteran,
Besides dealing with the challenges inherent in building the
kit stock, I decided to make things more interesting by convert-
ing it into a two-seat F-100F. I had a C & H Aero Miniatures
and for the next eight years, this classic fighter-bomber did the resin fuselage conversion, but I don’t like to work with resin all
job it was designed to do. that much. I had several of the Monogram kits on hand – how
The F-100 flew primarily in South Vietnam supporting hard would it be to splice in a section of fuselage from a second
ground troops and got little publicity. Though never officially kit and make a new canopy? Let the surgery begin.
credited with a kill, many believe Capt. Don Kilgus of the 416th Warming up. I got in the mood by scoring, bending, and
Tactical Fighter Squadron shot down a MiG-17 in April 1965. removing the horizontal stabilators molded onto the upper fuse-
If so, it was the only aerial victory for a Hun. lage half, 1. Besides getting in the way, the stabilators on most
The classic Monogram kit. Monogram’s F-100D is a vet- parked F-100s I’ve seen drooped a bit, and I wanted them that
eran in its own right. First released in 1980, it was typical of way on my model.
Monogram kits of the time. The detail and outline were good, The kit has the upper wing halves molded together. Because
but the fit of big parts was not. In 2001, Monogram reissued the of the fuselage problems I knew were coming, I separated the
kit with new colorful decals.
Monogram split the fuselage into top and bottom halves
rather than the typical left-and-right split. The horizontal split
produces obvious seams along the fuselage that don’t correspond
to real panel lines. Also, the gun-bay covers don’t fit well in the
closed position.
The fit problems and raised panel detail spell trouble. After
filling and sanding, most of the fuselage panel lines will be gone.
I prepared myself for a rescribing job.

Pat’s two-seat “Hun” (short for “hundred”) is the product of

merging two Monogram Super Sabre kits. Extensive fuselage
surgery is neatly covered by putty, super glue, and a fine air-
brushed paint job. William Zuback photo

© 2009
26 FineScale Modeler Kalmbach
April 2003 Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher. www.FineScale.com
 1/48 Scale

wings into a traditional left-and-right-wing-into-slots arrange- cant body work and epoxy putty. I also filled the two outboard
ment, 2. After sanding and rescribing the panel lines, I sawed cannon troughs, as the F carried only the inner pair.
grooves to accept .010" styrene wing fences patterned from the On the upper fuselage half, I removed 5⁄16" from the humped
overly thick kit fences. I left the fences off until final assembly. spine that meets the aft edge of the canopy. I cut away and relo-
Monogram’s drop tanks are meant to represent the standard cated the cockpit’s back deck area against the shortened hump.
275-gallon tanks originally fitted to the F-100. Unfortunately, Using the lengthened fuselage bottom as a guide, I penciled
they are about 1⁄4" too short and a bit too blunt. cut lines and spliced in the corresponding sections of the donor’s
Vietnam experience led to a 28" extension being inserted in top fuselage. Oh my, talk about mismatched contours! This was
these tanks, increasing the capacity of each to 335 gallons. These going to be a job.
were the tanks I needed for my model, so I spliced in 3⁄4" sec- I built up sunken areas with epoxy putty, noting these weren’t
tions cut out of the tanks from a spare F-100 kit (the donor was going to match some bottom-half contours when the top and
molded in olive-colored plastic), 3. bottom came together. I’d cross that bridge when I got there.
The splices made up for the original shortfall and provided To create a long, straight, and flat canopy sill, I ground down
the additional length. A bit of epoxy putty was required to
maintain contours, and I tapered the front ends a bit with a
coarse sanding stick.
Fuselage extension. Now the fun part. I spliced a 5⁄8" sec-
tion of my donor F-100D kit into the bottom fuselage half of
my F-to-be, 4. This section included the forward part of a nose-
wheel well, which I blanked off with .020" styrene.
It was immediately apparent there was going to be more to
this stretch than simply splicing in fuselage sections.
Maintaining constant fuselage contours would require signifi-

April 2003 www.finescale.com 27

1 2
Pat’s first task was to separate the stabilators from the upper
fuselage half. In-progress photos by Pat Hawkey
3 4
Monogram’s drop tanks were too short, so Pat extended them
with sections cut from spare F-100 tanks.
5 attached canopy breaker) would snap forward. I modified one of
Pat cleaned out the intake seam with fine sandpaper wrapped
around a round file.
most of the existing sill area. Then I laid in replacement
Evergreen strip stock.
Cockpit interior. For my model’s cockpit tub, I grafted
together a pair of kit tubs. The rear instrument panel was from
the spare kit. I just shaved off the raised dials that didn’t belong
on the rear panel.
Work on the cockpit floor started with the engine air intake
which is molded as part of the cockpit. The intake trunk is split
in top and bottom halves too, and to make it look seamless, I
poured gap-filling super glue down the throat and smoothed the
seams with a round file wrapped in fine sandpaper, 5.
Monogram’s ejection seats are OK, but Legend sells a better
pair of resin replacements (stock No. LF4004). I added rails to
the back of the Legend seat from Evergreen channel stock, 6.
The front seat of the F-100F had a rearward-folding top half
to the headrest (to improve forward visibility for the back-
seater). As part of the ejection sequence, the top half (with the
28 FineScale Modeler April 2003
The wings were separated from each other to make attachment to
the fuselage easier. Pat made new wing fences from sheet styrene.
The fuselage extensions were spliced in from a spare (olive-col-
ored plastic) F-100 kit. A stock F-100D fuselage is at top.
the Legend seats to reflect that feature.
The Legend seats come with separate ankle stirrups, but for
simplicity’s sake I used the stirrups molded in the Monogram
floors. Positioning the seats to accept the stirrups couldn’t be
done until the back wall of each tub section was removed. That
meant adding a bit to the back ends of the side consoles, 7. I
joined the front and rear tubs and extended the side consoles of
the rear tub forward with sheet styrene.
I filled and smoothed the insides of the converted fuselage
top half. Using Monogram’s interior as a guide, I added styrene
strips to simulate the structure and equipment, 8. I also made
rear bulkheads for each cockpit from .020" sheet stock and
added the rear instrument panel cover from a section of air-
intake trunk from the donor F-100 kit.
Closing the fuselage. The F-100F had a pair of promi-
nent vents on either side of the nose. The F-100D had only one
per side, and Monogram molded them as slightly depressed rec-
tangles. I penciled the outlines where I thought the vents should
be. Then, with a small bit, I drilled a series of holes to open the
vents, 9. I carefully shaped each vent with a fresh No. 11 blade.
Keeping the four vents uniform was a challenge.
With the cockpit installed, I brought the fuselage halves
together. As expected, the seam was rough, and the area of my
surgery was especially ugly, 10. Generous amounts of gap-filling
super glue and epoxy putty filled cracks, holes, and depressions.
Putting a lid on it. All that work would be for naught
without a canopy. I wasn’t happy with the shape of the C & H
canopy, but I used it as a starting point for a better one. First, I
poured Alumilite two-part urethane resin into the upturned
canopy and let it set. The resin doesn’t stick to the plastic, so it
 6 7
The Legends resin F-100 seat (left) is better detailed than the stock
Monogram seat. Pat added Evergreen channel stock for the rails.
8 9
Pat laid in strips of styrene to detail the interior of the extended
fuselage.
was easy to remove the impression.
I added smears of epoxy putty to the resin copy, and after it
had set, I sculpted the copy until I got the proper shape. Since
the epoxy putty didn’t sand as easily as the resin, I could see and
feel the edges of the putty. If I had vacuum-formed over this, the
edges would’ve shown in the clear plastic, so I took two more
steps to make the final master.
I made an RTV silicone rubber mold of my modified copy,
then poured another Alumilite casting (see “Basics of resin cast-
ing,” November 2002 FSM). This produced a resin master, and
I did all the final sanding and polishing on it.
I vacuum formed .020" Vivak (clear plastic, available through
Micro-Mark – stock No. 81336) over the master, trimmed it
out, and masked it before painting the model, 11 (see “Making
an inexpensive vacuum-forming machine,” March 1998 FSM).
I added sills and inner frames from Evergreen strip stock.
Reinstalling the stabilators. In order to mount my stabila-
tors at their relaxed angle, I inserted a section of 1⁄16" aluminum
tube through the rear fuselage, cutting and filing the ends flush
with the outside, 12. I put corresponding brass pins into the sta-
bilators at their pivot points. Then I removed them; they wouldn’t
join up with the airplane again until everything was painted.
Rescribing panel lines. After much sanding, priming, and
re-sanding, the fuselage was pretty smooth. Next up was rescrib-
ing all the panel lines. With all the bodywork involved, doing
this earlier would’ve resulted in a lot of repeated effort.
Studying reference photos, I first penciled on all the panel
lines, 13. Next, I lightly scribed in new panel lines with both a
Bare-Metal Foil plastic scriber and my homemade tool, a
sewing needle chucked in a pin vise.
Fitting the fin and engine exhaust piece presented more fit
Here are both F-100 cockpits glued together to form the two-seat
tub. Sheet styrene was used to extend the rear-seater’s consoles.
The prominent pair of vents on each side of the nose were drilled
out, then cleaned with a sharp blade.
10
That whoppin’ seam on the fuselage had to go. The extension
surgery required even more filling and sanding.
problems, 14. Hand me that epoxy putty one more time. Of
course, this area would eventually be finished as natural metal,
so that meant extra careful sanding and priming.
New details. I made a new pitot tube from telescoping alu-
minum tube and styrene rod, 15. I put an aluminum pin in the
back, which was bent to the angle needed and inserted into the
hole drilled under the nose.
Monogram’s barrier hook was too thick, so I thinned it down
considerably. I removed the ordnance mounts from the kit’s
inner and outer weapons racks since I didn’t want my F carry-
ing anything but the drop tanks.
To the paint shop. Painting the bulk of the F model was a
straightforward free-hand airbrush camouflage job with
Extracolor gloss enamels. I masked off the aft section that
would eventually be finished in natural metal.
To get the uneven appearance of a veteran airplane, I went
back with lighter mixes of the base colors and sprayed them ran-
April 2003 www.finescale.com 29
11
Here are Pat’s new extended canopy and the resin-copy master
he used to vacuum-form clear plastic.
13
The first step in rescribing is to pencil on all the panel lines while
referring to photos and drawings.
15
The mounting stubs for ordnance were removed from the pylons,
and a new pitot boom was made. The barrier hook was thinned
down from the kit part.
domly to simulate ground-crew touchups. I lean toward subtle-
ty here. I want the viewer to see a convincing finish rather than
a weathering job shaped like an airplane. I applied clear gloss
before decaling, then a clear flat to seal the decals and even the
finish.
The area that makes or breaks an F-100 model is the dis-
tinctive heat-discolored titanium skin around the engine.
Photos showed a distinct discoloration pattern reflecting the
structure under the skin. These areas were originally painted in
camouflage, but the heat quickly baked the paint off the metal.
But how could I replicate that hot-metal look? First I count-
ed rib lines in photos, and made corresponding pencil marks on
the model. Since they would disappear under the first coat of
paint, I pressed the teeth of a razor saw on top of the pencil lines
just hard enough for the bite marks to give me a visual reference
under the paint, 16.
First I sprayed Model Master chrome silver with a few drops
30 FineScale Modeler April 2003
12
Pat modified the stabilators so they could be drooped. The alu-
minum tube inside holds the pins on the stabilators.
14
The back end of the fuselage and the separate fin didn’t fit well
to the fuselage.
of Testor 1133 brown (in the 1⁄4 oz. bottle line) added. I sprayed
this mix over the entire aft end. When it was dry, I masked the
front half and sprayed the rear half with a bit more 1133 added
to the mix to produce a two-tone metallic rear end, 17.
I thinned 1133 brown to almost a brown-tinted thinner. With
my Paasche H-1 tip cranked down to the finest line, I painted
vertical lines (following the razor-saw teeth marks) to represent
the darkened pattern in the titanium skin, 18. I next thinned
gloss dark blue to the same consistency and repeated the exercise
over some of the brown lines. The idea was to show the
bronze/brown/blue/violet hue gradations of the real thing.
When all of that was dry, I dabbed liquid masking agent in
irregular vertical patches on the forward part of the burnt-metal
areas, 19, then mixed slightly lighter shades of the correspon-
ding camouflage colors and applied them to the metal area.
When the dried masking agent was peeled off, it exposed the
natural metal below. I also streaked black chalk pastels for the
characteristic grimy look of the cooked Super Sabre rear end.
Finished F. The last stage was adding the small parts: landing
gear, pylons, leading-edge slats, refueling probe, pitot, and canopy.
The model was marked to represent a veteran of the 306th Tac-
tical Fighter Squadron, 31st Tactical Fighter Wing, at Tuy Hoa,
Vietnam, from December 1966 to October 1970. I scrounged tail
code numbers from several aftermarket lettering sheets.
How long did it take to make my F-100F? I don’t know. I
stopped counting hours when I realized what I’d gotten myself
into after the fuselage surgery. Perhaps working with the C & H
resin conversion would have been quicker, but sometimes you
have to do it the hard way to find out. FSM
Thanks to Dave Menard for background information on my F-100F.
16 17

Pat marked the vertical structure lines of the rear fuselage by The base colors of the two-tone engine section were painted with
pressing a razor saw into the plastic. the rest of the fuselage and the fin was masked off.

18 19

Pat lightly accented the vertical structure lines by airbrushing Liquid masking agent was applied to protect the “burned” areas
with thinned paint. from the subsequent camouflage paint.

The bottoms of combat F-100s were paint-

ed overall light gray to make them blend
into the sky. Jim Forbes photo

The addition of the second cockpit did little harm to the graceful yet aggressive lines of The back-seater’s panel had fewer instru-
the Super Sabre. F-100Fs were used in combat alongside single-seat F-100Ds and a ments. Note the folded-over headrest of
few F-100Cs in Vietnam. William Zuback photo the front seat. Jim Forbes photo

April 2003 www.finescale.com 31

The result of Pat’s simulated burned-away paint on the rear of the “Hun” looks just right. Many F-100s had camouflage added to the
rear ends, but it baked off quickly. Later, with lessons learned, the rear fuselages were left unpainted. Jim Forbes photo
The F-100F in Southeast Asia
Although F-100Fs were the first
Wild Weasels (especially equipped to
attack radar and surface-to-air missile
sites) in Vietnam, they played a more
significant role as forward air con-
trollers (FACs) using the radio call
sign “Misty.” As enemy defenses took
an increased toll of O-1 and O-2 pro-
peller-driven FACs in southern North
Vietnam and Laos, the Air Force
chose jets as replacements. In June
1967, four F-100Fs and 16 pilots
formed Detachment 1, 612th
TFS/37th TFW at Phu Cat, Vietnam.
Under the code name Commando
Sabre, they initiated Misty operations.
The mission was to fly low and
fast, looking for troop and material
movement and SAM sites, and mark
those targets with white phosphorus
rockets. The Misty crews then guided
arriving fighter bombers to targets.
The FACs also supported the all-too-
regular search-and-rescue missions,
retrieving downed aircrews.
Misty crews consisted of two pilots
32 FineScale Modeler April 2003
who would switch seats from mission
to mission. Stores comprised a pair of
335-gallon drop tanks, a pair of rocket
pods on the outboard racks, and 220
rounds of 20mm ammunition for the
two cannons. Depending on the level
of activity and trips to orbiting tankers,
missions lasted from 4 1⁄2 to 6 hours.
Though MiGs were not encoun-
tered where Mistys operated, the low
altitudes they had to work in were
lethal from automatic anti-aircraft
artillery (AAA.)
In April 1969, the F-100s moved
from Phu Cat to Tuy Hoa. Laos
remained a hunting ground for them,
but bigger, faster, tougher Misty F-4s
covered North Vietnam. In the three
years ( June 1967 - May 1970) of
Misty operations, 17 aircraft were lost,
and of 155 pilots flying the missions,
seven were killed in action and four
became prisoners of war.
Among the notable alumni of this
elite group are Ronald Fogleman and
Merrill McPeak, who both went on to
become Air Force Chiefs of Staff;
Lacy Veach, who would become a
shuttle astronaut; and Dick Rutan,
who co-piloted the first flight around
the world without refueling.
– Pat Hawkey
REFERENCES
F-100 Super Sabre in Action Lou
Drendel, Squadron/Signal Publications,
Carrollton, TX, 1973
Wings of Fame Vol. 3 “‘Huns’ over
Vietnam,” Robert Dorr, Aerospace
Publishing Ltd., London, England, 1996
www.f-100.org
www.mistyvietnam.com
SOURCES
Resin F-100F conversion C & H Aero
Miniatures, 4851 Cynthia Lane,
Murfreesboro, TN 37127
Casting resin Alumilite, 315 E. North
St., Kalamazoo, MI 49007, 800-447-
9344, www.alumilite.com
Vivak clear plastic Micro-Mark, 340
Snyder Ave., Berkeley Heights, NJ
07922-1595, 908-464-6764,
www.micromark.com
 VIETNAM SPECIAL

Modeling a
Huey gunship
Making the best of Italeri’s UH-1C
By Paul Boyer Photos by Jim Forbes and William Zuback

I f I had to pick only one aircraft to serve as a symbol of the conflict in Southeast Asia,
it would have to be Bell Helicopter’s UH-1 Iroquois. Of course, the chopper was
universally called the “Huey” (a phonetic expression of the helicopter’s earlier desig-
nation, HU-1).
Designated XH-40 when it first flew Oct. 22, 1956, it was the first U.S. military
helicopter designed to be powered by a gas turbine (jet) engine. The first production
HU-1A flew in June 1959.

© 2009
36 FineScale Modeler Kalmbach
April 2003 Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher. www.FineScale.com
 1/72 Scale
Left: Whether the huge sharkmouth on this 1
UH-1C Huey gunship was intended to
strike fear in the enemy or promote esprit
de corps among U.S. Army crews, it
makes for a colorful chopper.

Combat helicopters came of age in the

war in Southeast Asia. The Huey became
the prime airborne cavalry vehicle,
deploying troops in massive operations,
often into dangerously small and hot LZs
– landing zones. Although they were not The kit rotor assembly (top) is not the proper one for the UH-1C. Cobra Company’s
the first armed helicopters, the B and C resin 540 rotor set saves the day.
model Hueys established the weaponry
and tactics that led to the development of 2
the first attack helicopter, the AH-1
Cobra.
The C (or “Charlie”) version was set
up as a gunship, carrying various loads on
universal mounts outside the cabin. One
of the most common configurations was
an M134 six-barrel “Minigun” on the end
of each mount, with a seven-shot XM157
rocket pod hung on the pylon below.
Italeri’s kit. Italeri makes a series of
Huey kits in 1/72 scale, and three of them
are the “short cabin” versions, the
UH-1B, UH-1C, and UH-1F. They’re
pretty good in detail, but there are some
nearly insurmountable dimension prob-
lems. The tailboom is too short, as are the
main rotors, even for the rotors found on
the B and F models.
The C model had completely different
main rotors called the “540 rotor system”
(also used on the Cobra) with wider
blades and a more robust head. The Paul painted the interior first and attached the top to the left fuselage side.
Italeri boxing of the UH-1C (kit No.
050) has some new parts to change details 3
for the C model, but there are no new
main rotors.
To the rescue rides the Cobra Com-
pany, with a resin replacement rotor set
(No. 72014), 1. The rotors look accurate
and well-cast, and can be used as replace-
ments on the old Monogram AH-1G
Cobra, too. But there’s one serious prob-
lem that Cobra’s correction set doesn’t
address: Italeri’s short tailboom. When
the replacement rotors are mounted, they
intersect the tail-rotor arc.
There’s no easy way to fix the tail
boom problem. The boom doesn’t have a
constant cross-section, so stretching with
parts from another kit is impractical. I
could have cut the tips from the main
rotors so they wouldn’t collide with the
tail rotors; or I could simply pose the
model with the main rotors away from
the boom so the intersecting arcs would- Before closing the fuselage, the insides were masked and the exterior sprayed olive
n’t be apparent. I chose the latter method. drab with an airbrush.

April 2003 www.finescale.com 37

4 It’s cheating, yes, but so is shortening the
main rotors.
Cobra also produces an alternate
weapons set for Huey gunships, and I
used that on my model, too. Set No.
72013 has a pair of resin miniguns, seven-
shot rocket pods, and mounting
hardware.
Painting helicopter models. In
addition to the problems of building hel-
icopter models with their fragile rotors,
After the paint was dry, Paul glued the fuselage halves and held them together with antennas, and external weapons, masking
clothespins. and painting around all those big win-
dows is a pain. Do I put the whole model
5 together, then paint? How about painting
first? Actually, a combination of these
methods is best.
My initial focus was the interior. I
built it and painted it following the kit
instructions, but left out the rear canvas
bench seat to make room for the Cobra
resin ammo cans for the miniguns. I also
painted the insides of the fuselage halves
and glued the top to the left half, 2.
Instead of installing the interior and
windows and masking all the open areas,
I left the windows off and painted the
A nail shaper smoothed the glued seams. exterior before assembling the fuselage
halves. I airbrushed Polly Scale olive drab
6 thinned with Polly Scale clear gloss for a
smooth semi-gloss sheen, 3. I used large
pieces of masking tape to make sure over-
spray didn’t color the insides of each half.
I figured that I could install the over-
head windows (tinted with Tamiya clear
green) and the crew-door windows by
fishing them through the large cabin
openings at final assembly. The bottom
windows and windscreen attach from the
outside, and the windows for the separate
cabin doors would not be a problem.
I installed the interior and closed the
fuselage halves, holding the assembly
together with clothespins while the glue
All the sanded seams were retouched with a brush and paint. set, 4. After the glue cured, I sanded the
seams with a sanding stick (a four-way
7 nail shaper, if you must know), 5, then
retouched the sanded seams with a
brushed-on coat of paint, 6.
After hand-brushing the black anti-
glare panel on the nose and adding the
red-painted stabilizers, I airbrushed a
coat of Future acrylic floor polish, 7, and
let that dry two days.
I used the kit decals because they rep-
resent a colorful sharkmouth gunship.
They went on pretty well but left a gap
between halves at the front. I retouched
with white, 8, and then red to finish the
toothy grin.
I applied a thin black wash to the
To make a smooth surface for the decals, Paul airbrushed Future floor polish. detail, wiped away the excess, and over-

38 FineScale Modeler April 2003

coated the entire fuselage with Polly Scale 8 9
clear flat.
Next I installed the windows. I inserted
the crew-door windows from the front
using a small blob of Blue Tac sticky putty
on a toothpick as a handle, 9. A little drop
of gap-filling super glue in the depression
between panes was enough to hold the
window in place. The same method was
used to install the top windows.
The main rotors. Cobra’s resin main
rotor assembly was easy to put together,
but I had to modify the Italeri rotor mast
a bit to fit. I needed to cut off the top half
of the mast, shorten it a bit, and rotate it
so that the dampener control arms could
reach around the new rotor head and
connect with the stabilizer bar.
Cobra’s instructions indicate the
UH-1C’s rotors were olive drab on top
and flat black on bottom. I painted them
so, and then painted yellow (over white The kit decals didn’t quite come together Paul installed the windows by fishing them
for better color density) on the tips. The at the front, so the gap in the grin was inside with a toothpick and sticky-putty
paint on a Huey’s rotor erodes quickly, so retouched with paint. handle.
I simulated that by cutting loose paper
masks from Post-It Notes and spraying 10
the leading edges with Testor Metalizer
steel, 10. I did the same on the tail rotors.
Packin’ heat. Cobra provides mini-
guns to go on the ends of the “universal”
weapons mounts, but there aren’t any
positive attachment points. Missing from
the set are the prominent ammunition
chutes from the ammo cans in the cabin.
Each chute came out of the can, descend-
ed through a hole in the cabin floor, and
out through a hole in the belly of the hel-
icopter, then snaked over the mount to
the gun breech. I used thin strip styrene To simulate erosion of the rotor-blade paint, Paul airbrushed steel on the leading edges.
for the chutes, heated, curled, and cut to
length, 11. 11
The finishing touch was mounting all
the tiny breakable bits such as the pitot
tube, tail stinger, and tail rotors.
Well, it ain’t perfect, but at least with
the proper rotors it looks more like the
UH-1C should. I just have to keep those
rotors away from each other or my scale
helicopter will have to execute a scale
autorotation to a scale safe landing. FSM

REFERENCES
Fighting Colors, UH-1 Huey in Color
Wayne Mutza, Squadron/ Signal
Publications, Carrollton, Texas, 1992
UH-1 Huey in Action Wayne Mutza,
Squadron/Signal Publications, Carrollton,
Texas, 1986

SOURCE
Resin detail sets Cobra Company, P.O. Box
3966, Crofton, MD 21114, 301-261-3216,
http://cobracompany.com Paul added strip styrene ammunition chutes to the tiny miniguns.

April 2003 www.finescale.com 39

Aircraft | How-To

Improving Italeri’s
Destroyer
Make a Vietnam War Douglas EB-66E Story and photos by Pat Hawkey
© 2009
54 FineScale Modeler Kalmbach2003
November Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher. www.FineScale.com

The EB-66E Destroyer was an electronic countermeasures platform during the Vietnam
War. Pat made lots of improvements to the 1/72 scale Italeri kit.
Ton hethea Douglas B-66 Destroyer was one of
few U.S. Air Force aircraft based
Navy airplane design – the A-3
Skywarrior. However, by the time the Air
Force had finished tailoring the bomber
to its requirements, only the shape and
size of the two bombers were similar.
Originally acquired as a jet replacement
for the B-26 Invader, the B-66 went into
service in 1956. Despite its bomber ori-
gins, it was most useful as a photo- and
electronic-reconnaissance aircraft.
Italeri’s kits (both standard bomber
and reconnaissance versions were issued)
are the only B-66 models available in 1/72
scale. First released in the early 1980s,
each comes with recessed panel lines,
though they’re not very deep or precise,
and there are a number of surface imper-
fections that need to be corrected. If you’re
thinking about a natural-metal airplane,
be prepared for a lot of surface preparation
to attain a smooth, flawless finish.
Up front. For its age, the Italeri kit
provides an impressive front office.
Unfortunately, two-thirds of it disappears
when the fuselage halves go together. I
see no sense in working on what will not
1/72 Scale
The cockpit assembly ready to be installed
in the model. Pat left out the rear seats since
they can’t be seen in the finished model.
Pat made strip styrene internal bracing to
force the upper and lower fuselage edges
to meet evenly.
Scoring the surface makes it easier for the
epoxy putty filler to grip the plastic.
be seen, so I focused on the pilot’s posi-
tion and painted the floor and walls
behind it flat black.
There is no open canopy option, so I
didn’t get carried away with detail, simply
adding pilot and co-pilot seat and shoul-
der belts. I cut thin strips from lead foil,
rolled each into a ball, then unrolled it to
add wear and texture.
I painted the visible cockpit detail
with dark gull gray, added black wash to
enhance shadow details, and lightly dry-
brushed everything with silver to add
definition, 1.
November 2003 www.finescale.com 55
 4 5
Once sanded down, the added epoxy
putty raises the sunken area of the left
fuselage half.
7 8
Pat removed the top and replaced it with
a section of 1⁄4 " plastic tubing.
The small windows of the aft crew
compartment didn’t fit well, and since
there was nothing inside to see, I simulat-
ed the windows with black decal pieces
after painting. I glued the kit windows
into their holes, filled the low spots on the
exterior with gap-filling super glue, and
sanded everything smooth.
After gluing the cockpit assembly and
nose gear well into one fuselage half, I
was ready to put the fuselage together.
With the main gear set so far back, no
weight had to be added to the nose.
One problem with Italeri’s kit is the
mismatch of upper and lower fuselage
seams. There’s no way to reach inside to
adjust the fit while the glue dries, so I
made a strip-styrene truss to support and
help align the seams, 2.
Even after installing this support, the
left half of the fuselage showed a signif-
icant dish on top. To fix it, I first
scratched the plastic with a dental probe
(any pointed object will work), 3, then
smeared on a layer of epoxy putty, 4.
(The scratched surface helped the putty
bind to the plastic.)
The belly of the model was worse. I
ended up filling and sanding the bottom
56 FineScale Modeler November 2003
The bottom fuselage seam also needed
work. Here Pat engraves panel lines while
the fuselage is held in a hobby vise.
The new rear end with gaps filled and
blended with epoxy putty, and new air
scoops and antennas.
of the fuselage completely smooth and re-
scribing all the surface detail, 5.
Bobbing the tail. The kit comes as
an early EB-66, and the aircraft I was
modeling was a late one. The difference?
Lots of little things, mostly antennas, but
the top of the rear end of the fuselage had
a different setup, 6. I converted this area
after adding the wings and tailplanes, but
should’ve done it before – it would’ve
made it easier to cut and sand.
At some point in the late ’60s, the
Mod 2259 installation was introduced to
EB-66Es. It featured an AAQ-4 infrared
countermeasure unit on the top of the of
the fuselage end. This, along with its
cooling air scoops, was what I had to
reproduce.
First, I carefully razor-sawed away
20mm of the top of the rear part of the
fuselage (there’s a vertical panel line at
that point) using existing horizontal
panel lines as a guide. I replaced the miss-
ing section with a piece of 1⁄4"-diameter
Evergreen styrene tube and plugged the
aft end with a styrene disc, 7. I filled the
openings with epoxy putty and blended
and smoothed it to conform to the
remaining fuselage, 8.
6
Here is the back end of the fuselage as
presented in the kit.
9
Pat thinned the wing trailing edges with a
sanding block.
Next, I added cooling scoops from
bent styrene rod, the pair of rear-facing
antennas from bent wire, and the antenna
horizontal braces from styrene strip.
Taking wing. The wings were easier
to deal with. I sanded the inside surfaces
of the wing halves with a sanding block to
ensure a tight top and bottom fit and thin
trailing edges, 9.
The wings fit loosely to the fuselage,
and they needed to be installed with a
slight anhedral (down angle). I drilled cor-
responding holes in the wing roots and
fuselage to accept aluminum tubing, 10.
The tubing provides strength, and by
bending it slightly, it ensures the proper
wing anhedral. I had to fill and sand the
seams, but at least they were easy to get at.
Jet pods. The next bit of fun was
building the engine pods. I hate seams in
engine intakes, and this kit has some
whoppers. The only way I could eliminate
them was to cut the front ends off the
pods, work on the seams from the insides,
and reinstall the ends. I carefully cut them
off at the panel lines that correspond with
the locations of the kit’s engine faces, 11.
After gluing the front halves together,
I liberally applied gap-filling super glue to
10
Aluminum tubes mounted in the fuselage reinforce the wing/fuselage joint and hold the
proper angle of anhedral.
12
After gluing the halves together, the seams
were filled with gap-filling super glue.
15
Pat sanded off the raised rings around the exhausts and inserted
brass tubing for a better appearance.
the inside seams, 12, then sanded them
reasonably smooth with coarse sandpaper
wrapped around a dowel, 13. I smeared
body putty into the scratches, sanded and
primed until everything was smooth,
then painted the inside of the intakes
gloss white, 14.
Reference photos showed the raised
rings molded on the jet exhaust were
inaccurate – I sanded them off. To
improve the look of the exhausts, I insert-
ed 5⁄16"-diameter brass tube sections with
the inside ends blanked off, 15.
13
20-grit sandpaper wrapped around a
dowel did the heavy work of smoothing
the insides of the intakes.
16
Styrene spacers place the engine faces in their proper positions
inside the nacelles. Flat black paint adds the illusion of depth.
When it came time to reattach the
fronts of the pods, I noticed the engine
faces sat too far back inside. I made spac-
ers about 4mm thick and inserted the
faces in the pods, 16. Then I glued the
front ends back on the pods.
All this surgery and seam cleaning
destroyed some of the soft recessed detail.
I sanded all the affected areas smooth, re-
scribed panel lines, and refined the
mating surface of the pylons that fit onto
the bottoms of the wings.
To make painting of the pods and the
11
To clean up the seams inside the intakes,
Pat removed the front ends from each half.
14
Before and after: Gone is the ugly seam
inside the intake on the left.
fuselage easier, I left them off until after
painting; the big pods make it almost
impossible to aim an airbrush up into the
corners of the wings and fuselage.
The last task before painting was
attaching the canopy. The fit here was not
good; the clear part was a bit narrower all
around than the cockpit opening. I built
up ledges along the opening with epoxy
putty and smoothed them out.
I thought it wise to leave all the anten-
nas off the model until after painting, but
I cleaned and test-fitted them first. I
November 2003 www.finescale.com 57
17
The antenna blades for the belly were a
bit too long, so Pat shortened them with a
single-edge razor blade.
The harrowing rescue attempts of a downed crew of an EB-66 were made into a popular movie; “Bat 21” was the callsign of the air-
craft. The Destroyers were not as numerous, successful, or long-lived as the Navy’s A-3 Skywarriors.
found the parts for the “antenna farm”
required careful cleanup, and the blades
were uniformly too long. I shortened
them all a bit with a razor blade, 17.
The kit’s refueling probe was poorly
molded, so I snipped off the tip of a spare
probe from a Fujimi A-4 Skyhawk and
grafted it onto a length of plastic rod.
I replaced Italeri’s roundish renditions
of the pair of vents on top of the fuselage
with smaller, more squared-off vents
made from styrene scraps.
To the paintshop. I used Extracolor
gloss enamels to paint the four-color tac-
tical camouflage. The tan appeared too
dark, so I added a little white before
painting.
Having misplaced the kit’s instruc-
58 FineScale Modeler November 2003
The modified back end represents the EB-66 electronics gear used near the end of the
aircraft’s career in the early 1970s.
tions with its painting guide, I checked
reference photos to determine the cam-
ouflage pattern. When finished, I found
the instructions and discovered the pat-
tern I had painted following the photos
was more accurate that those in the
instructions!
Decals, what few there were, came
mostly from the kit’s sheet. The Tactical
Air Command badges are from
Microscale’s USAF F-4 sheet No. 72-198
and the 363rd Tactical Reconnaissance
Wing badge from a Testor issue of
Italeri’s RF-4C. I used black decal mate-
rial for the aft crew compartment
windows, overcoated with Future after
the flat coat was applied.
The remaining detail parts went on
without fanfare. I made the FM homing
antennas located on the engine pylons
from bent stretched sprue. All the bristling
antenna blades make the model touchy to
handle but interesting to look at.
Italeri’s B-66 is a good simple kit, but
not a great simple kit. If you’re building a
collection of Vietnam-era aircraft, you
just gotta have a Destroyer! FSM
REFERENCES
Airpower “Birds of a Feather,” Peter M.
Bowers, July 1988
Scale Aircraft Modelling “Douglas B-66
Destroyer,” Lindsay Peacock, March, 1988
Douglas B-66 Destroyer, Aerofax
Minigraph 19 René Francillon and Mick
Roth, Aerofax Inc., Arlington, Texas, 1988
 Fascinatin’
Phantom
Kitbashing and creative weathering techniques
for a spectacular Vietnam War F-4C By Darren Roberts

P
ainting is one of my favorite aspects of modeling, especially
the challenge of producing eye-catching paint schemes. Each
project stretches my skills and improves my techniques. I
was flipping through a book about Vietnam War MiG killers
and spotted a photo of an F-4C Phantom II with badly peeled
camouflage paint exposing the original paint scheme underneath.
I knew I had to give it a try.
The kits
A handful of 1/48 scale F-4C/D kits have been available over the
years, including good offerings from Hasegawa, Monogram, and
ESCI. All three kits have some shortcomings, but by combining,
or kitbashing, them and adding aftermarket resin details, you can
build an impressive C or D Phantom.
I selected the ESCI and Hasegawa kits for my project because
© 2009 Kalmbach
36 FineScale Modeler OctoberPublishing
2004 Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher. www.FineScale.com
I already had them on hand. The Monogram kit can also be used
with the ESCI, or the Hasegawa C/D and J kits can be com-
bined to achieve the same results. The steps are basically the same
for whatever combination you choose.
ESCI’s F-4 was also released as both a C/D and a J. The plas-
tic inside, however, is essentially the same. I used this kit as my
starting point because it has the correct shape and decent fit, plus
the engraved panel lines I wanted for my model. The cockpit is
basic and needs to be replaced. The Hasegawa F-4C/D, despite
raised panel lines and cockpit accuracy problems of its own, has
some excellent parts that nicely supplement the ESCI kit.
Radome
The IR sensor on the ESCI nose was inaccurate, and the radome
seemed too small in diameter, which would cause a noticeable
 1/ 48 Scale | Aircraft | How-to

Don’t worry! Darren’s 1/48 2

Flaperons removed
scale F-4C isn’t the victim of
an airbrushing mishap. He used
an unusual painting process
to simulate this Vietnam war-
horse’s heavily worn Southeast
Asia camouflage scheme.

Cut-out auxiliary
air doors

Darren opened up the auxiliary air doors on the underside of the wing and
cut away the flaperons to reposition them.

Half-round
styrene rod

Styrene rod with a half-round cross-section gave the front edges of the flap-
erons the correct, rounded contour.

1 4 Gaps filled with

pieces of kit intakes
and Milliput

Aires wheel bays

Remove Gaps filled with

pieces of kit intakes
and Milliput

Here’s the left half of the Hasegawa fuselage before Darren removed the The kit’s main-gear bays were replaced with a resin set from Aires, shown
nose section (top) with the modified right half of the nose ready to be here after fuselage assembly and wing attachment.
installed on the ESCI fuselage.

step at the seam with the fuselage. The Hasegawa kit’s nose is
more accurate, and it fit better to boot!
I removed the nose section from the Hasegawa fuselage
halves with a razor saw and grafted it to the ESCI fuselage. If
you prefer a one-piece nose, you can cut off the IR sensor from
the Hasegawa nose and glue it onto the ESCI radome, but then
you have to fill that seam. In either case, if you are modeling a C
or early D, you will need to modify the IR sensor. Hasegawa pro-
vides the later-style sensor with several small bumps and a box-
shaped antenna on the underside. I removed them with a hobby
knife and a sanding stick, 1, and finished smoothing the sensor
after the fuselage halves were together and the seams filled.
Wings
I turned to the underside of the wings next, 2. Between the
main-gear wells are two auxiliary air doors that open when the
landing gear cycles down. ESCI molded them closed, but I
wanted to open them up. I used a scribing tool to thin the plastic
in the panel lines and then cut through the rest of the way with a
sharp hobby knife. New doors were fashioned from sheet styrene
and attached in the lowered position.
I did the same with the flaperons (combined flaps and aile-
rons), which should be lowered when the aircraft is parked. I
glued the flaperon halves together and then used half-round
plastic stock to give the front edges the correct, rounded contour,
3. After the wings were glued together, I simply installed the fla-
perons in the lowered position.
ESCI’s wheel bays are decent, but I replaced them with a
resin set from Aires, 4, which allowed me to use the better-
detailed Hasegawa landing gear and a set of True Details resin

October 2004 www.finescale.com 37

 5 6
Darren used a sanding wheel chucked in his motor tool to enlarge the opening for the Eagle Designs
resin afterburner cans and nozzles.
10
Insignia masks
Kneaded eraser
“snake” mask
Darren started the underlying gull-gray-and-white scheme by painting the insignia using masking tape masks.
wheels. I ground off the molded detail inside the ESCI wings
with a sanding wheel in my motor tool. I was careful not to
grind too long, which would generate heat that could melt and
deform the plastic.
I cleaned up the area with 320- and 600-grit sandpaper, then
installed the Aires wheel bays using super glue (styrene cement
won’t bond resin to plastic). The wheel bays turned out to be a bit
too tall and long, but after careful sanding and cutting a notch in
the fuselage, everything fit.
Engines and tail
ESCI supplies a basic set of engine nozzles with shallow,
blanked-off interiors. I opened up this area with the sanding
wheel, 5 and 6, to accept the Hasegawa nozzles. Then I found
an even better-detailed set of resin burner cans and nozzles from
Eagle Designs; they fit perfectly in the openings.
The tail section needed some small fixes, 7. ESCI provides
slatted stabilizers, which are incorrect for the C/D variant. I
decided to scribe the Hasegawa stabilizers and use them instead.
I cut the locating tabs from the ESCI stabilizers and glued
them into the corresponding holes in the fuselage to help the
Hasegawa parts fit securely. The Hasegawa stabilizers have a
round tab to connect them to the fuselage, so I drilled locating
holes in the ESCI fuselage where I wanted the tabs to go. I held
off installing the easily broken stabilizers until painting and deca-
ling were finished.
ESCI’s rudimentary fuel dump above the parachute housing
38 FineScale Modeler October 2004
7 “Football”
antenna
sanded off
Photoetched
vent
Locating slot
filled and hole Fuel dump
drilled for removed
Hasegawa parts
The vertical tail required a number of minor cor-
rections to represent the F-4C configuration.
11
was replaced with the part cut from the Hasegawa kit, which I
thinned a bit so it would match the size of the surrounding area
of the ESCI tail. The aircraft I was modeling didn’t have the
“football” antenna edge of the fin cap, so I removed it. For most
F-4Cs and Ds, however, you will keep it. I replaced the pitot
tubes on the leading edge of the vertical tail with the parts from
the Hasegawa kit.
For the red light on the leading edge of the tail, I cut a notch
and glued in a piece of clear, red plastic stock, then sanded it
down to the correct shape. Finally, I cut off the vent at the base of
the leading edge and replaced it with a photoetched piece from
an Eduard detail set.
The exterior upgrades were complete. If you use the
Hasegawa C/D and J kits, there’s one more step: You’ll need to
fill in the panel lines for the Navy-style refueling probe on the
right half of the F-4J fuselage just under the canopy and scribe
the Air Force-style door on the fuselage spine.
Intakes
None of the 1/48 scale Phantom kits have intake trunks that
go back to the compressor blades. Instead, they are blanked off
and have seams that are extremely difficult to clean up. A set
of Seamless Suckers resin intakes that include the compressor
blades took care of this for me. Although the set was designed
for the Hasegawa kit, it was fairly easy to modify the ESCI kit to
accept the parts.
I removed 7mm of the fuselage with a razor saw, 8, and
 8 9
Canopy
sills to be
removed
7mm of
fuselage
removed
A section of fuselage had to be cut away to make room for the new
Seamless Suckers intakes. The canopy sills were also removed to accommo-
date photoetched replacements.
12
Decals cut to
shape of future
exposed areas
A coat of clear flat lacquer protected the gull-gray layer from the weather-
ing onslaught to come.
sanded down the inside the fuselage and the trunks. I ended up
using some of the kit intake to fill a large gap where the wings
joined the intakes. I filled other gaps with Milliput, 4, which
hardens nicely and won’t chip during sanding or rescribing panel
lines. Some of the resin had to be ground away where the lead-
ing edge of the wing meets the intake, 9. At the same time, I
cut notches farther back on the fuselage so the Aires wheel bays
would fit when I attached the wings.
The intakes involved a bit more work than installing them on
the Hasegawa kit, but they’re such a vast improvement over the
kit intakes, the effort was worth it.
Cockpit
ESCI’s sparse cockpit consists of decals for the instrument panels
and rudimentary seats. That wasn’t good enough for my superde-
tailed baby, so I used a beautifully detailed resin cockpit set from
Black Box. It’s for an F-4D, but the differences between the C
and the D are pretty small. I did replace the Navy radar scope
hood on the rear instrument panel with a round hood from the
Eduard photoetched set.
It took a lot of grinding, sanding, and test-fitting to get the
new cockpit tub to fit. I used a razor saw to cut away the back
instrument hood of the ESCI kit, and I also removed the canopy
sills, 7. Following the instructions that come with the Black
Box set will save you a lot of headaches. After gluing the tub in
place, I closed up the fuselage halves and added new photoetched
canopy sills from the Eduard set.
Portion
of intake
removed to
Notch to fit fit wing
Aires wheel
bays
The resin intakes had to be ground away at the spot where they meet the
wings’ leading edges.
13
Micro Mask further protected the markings from the next layer of paint but
wouldn’t pull them off when removed.
Painting
My subject was one of the first production F-4Cs and had been
originally delivered to the Air Force in the Navy’s gull-gray-over-
white paint scheme. Later, it was painted over with the tactical
scheme for Vietnam, but the paint peeled badly, revealing the
original paint and markings underneath. The challenge was how
to replicate that look.
I began by spraying the gull-gray-and-white scheme. The
bond between the first layer of paint and the plastic had to be
strong, so I used enamels rather than acrylics. I decided to paint
the national insignias also, since they were large, and decals
would probably pull off when I created the peeling effect later on.
Using a decal as a guide, I made masking tape templates, 10 and
11, and sprayed the white portion first, then the blue, and finally,
the red stripes.
For the other markings, I applied Future only where decals
would go and cut the decals to roughly the shape of the por-
tion that would show through the tactical scheme to reduce the
chances of pulling them up later. A coat of Model Master clear
flat lacquer protected the gull-gray layer from getting peeled up
during the next steps, 12.
Before spraying the colors, I further protected the gull-gray
layer’s markings with Micro Mask, 13. I also randomly applied
“blobs” of Micro Mask over other areas of the fuselage to make
the peeling process easier later on.
For the camouflage, I needed paint that I could actually peel
off; it was time to break out the acrylics. I sprayed Model Master
October 2004 www.finescale.com 39
14 15
Kneaded eraser
snake mask

Darren free-handed the green portions of the camo, but overspray at the Masking with a combination of his trusty eraser snakes and masking tape,
edges made the pattern a little too soft. he repainted the edges of the colors.

19 20 21

To remove more paint and increase the wear, Darren burnished down mask- Where the acrylic topcoat was more tenacious, a hobby knife had to be used
ing tape and gave it a quick, brisk pull. to start the peeling before the tape could be brought in to finish the job.

Acryl dark tan first, then free-handed the medium- and dark-
green areas, 14.
References showed that while the topsides of some F-4s were
oversprayed with SEA colors, the undersides were left white,
including the fuel tanks. I masked off the white with a “snake” of
kneaded eraser (available at art-supply stores). The eraser is tacky
but doesn’t leave a residue – perfect for masking. (Silly Putty
would also work; see “Masking with Silly Putty” in the July 2003
FSM.) Larger areas were covered with wide masking tape.
After applying the colors, I masked the edges of each color
with eraser snakes, 15, and resprayed the darker colors to clean
up the edges, 16. Now, it was time to pull up some paint.
Weathering
I started the weathering process by picking off the blobs of
Micro Mask applied earlier, 17. This left the model with a
strange polka-dot appearance, 18, but I had started breaking
the acrylic paint’s adhesion to the underlying enamel. Next, I
used masking tape to pull up different-sized chunks of the col-
ors, 19, leaving the gull-gray paint beneath intact. It was exactly
the well-worn look I was after.
Where the acrylic paint stuck a little too well, I used a sharp
hobby knife to start the chipping, 20, before using the tape to
peel off more, 21. When the chipping looked the way I wanted
it, I oversprayed with Future, applied the top decals and a coat of

Phantoms for the Air Force

The Air Force version of the
Phantom II, the F-4C, resulted from
Secretary of Defense McNamara’s plan
to restructure the armed forces under
the concept of commonality. To reduce
costs and realize production economies,
aircraft were to be designed to fill both
Navy and Air Force requirements.
Department of Defense officials
concluded the Navy’s new F-4B fighters
could, with minor changes to the basic
design, serve the Air Force as well.
The most noticeable external change
was the main landing gear; the Navy’s
thin, high-pressure tires were replaced
with wider tires and anti-skid brakes.
This necessitated a “hump” in the top
of the wing and on the main-gear doors
to provide clearance for the larger tires.
The Navy-style refueling probe was
removed and a receptacle for the Air
Force’s high-speed boom was installed
behind the cockpit. Changes to the
cockpit included the addition of basic
flight controls for the back-seater.
Its service in Vietnam showed the F-
4C to be a capable combat aircraft that
provided the foundation for the highly
successful later Phantom versions.
– Darren Roberts

40 FineScale Modeler October 2004

16
Here’s the pristine Vietnam camouflage scheme after edge cleanup, but this
isn’t the look Darren wanted!
22
Early Air Force F-4Cs were equipped with Navy-style pylons (top) rather
than the more rounded Air Force type.
Model Master Acryl clear flat, and finished up with a light mist-
ing of Polly Scale dust to bring everything together.
External stores
ESCI supplies both Navy and Air Force wing pylons, 22. For
most Air Force F-4s, the rounded, “humped” pylon is appropri-
ate. However, early F-4Cs (and RF-4Cs) like mine had straight,
Navy-style pylons. Scrounging through my spares box, I found
some extra sway braces and two pairs of triple ejector racks
(TERs) to add to the pylons before installing the Sidewinder
rails and gluing the pylons to the wings.
The four AIM-7 Sparrow missiles came from the Hasegawa
kit, while the four early-style AIM-9 Sidewinders came from
a Monogram F-8 Crusader box. I attached the two wing drop
tanks and the larger centerline tank, then finished up by install-
ing the canopies, engine nozzles, horizontal stabilizers, and the
front gear door.
My war-weary Phantom was complete and ready for display
on my bookshelf. Even when surrounded by the rest of my col-
lection, its eye-catching, one-of-a-kind paint job makes it a con-
versation piece. FSM
REFERENCES
F-4C, D, and RF-4C in Detail and Scale No. 43 Bert Kinzey,
Squadron/Signal Publications, Carrollton, Texas, 1994
…And Kill MiGs Lou Drendel, Squadron/Signal Publications,
Carrollton, Texas, 1997
17 18
Darren began peeling up the Micro Mask splotches with tweezers, which
provided the starting points for the peeling process. The model takes on an
oddly polka-dotted appearance.
SOURCES
Photoetched detail set Eduard and Associates, Obrnice 170, 43521
Obrnice, Czech Republic, www.eduard.com
Burner cans/nozzles No. ED48CK08, Eagle Designs, available
from Victory Productions, P.O. Box 2819, Cummings, GA 30028,
www.victorymodels.com
Cockpit interior No. BL48058, Black Box, P.O. Box 607,
Rowlesburg, WV 26425, available from Squadron Mail Order,
972-242-8663, www.squadron.com
Intakes No. SS-6, Seamless Suckers, 406 N. Hoover, Wichita,
KS 67212
Wheel bays No. 4123, Aires, available from Eagle Strike
Productions, 786-293-6859, www.eaglestrikeproductions.com
Wheels No. TD48043, True Details, available from Squadron Mail
Order, 972-242-8663, www.squadron.com
Micro Mask Microscale Industries, 714-593-1422,
www.microscale.com
A regular contributor to FSM, Darren Roberts
has been modeling since age 5. When he’s not modeling
modern jets, Darren is an elementary school teacher in
Olathe, Kan., where he lives with his wife and two
daughters.
October 2004 www.finescale.com 41
© 2009 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher. www.FineScale.com
© 2009 Kalmbach Publishing Co. This material may not be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher. www.FineScale.com
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